Deep Unwind Library: Summer by Edith Wharton 📖

Deep Unwind Library: Summer by Edith Wharton 📖 

Time to relax with a great book!

In this Deep Unwind, you'll settle into deep relaxation before being transported to the quiet hills of western Massachusetts through the exquisite prose of Edith Wharton's Summer. Set on a shimmering lake, this  passage captures the beauty, anticipation, and emotional intensity of a romantic evening between Charity Royall and Lucius Harney.

As sunlight fades across the water, boats drift beneath overhanging willows, fireworks bloom across the night sky, and Wharton's richly descriptive language invites you to slow down, breathe deeply, and become immersed in another place and time.

This Unwind includes:

Guided hypnosis, deep relaxation, Edith Wharton, classic literature, Berkshire Mountains, historical fiction, guided storytelling, sensory imagery, mindfulness, nervous system regulation, parasympathetic relaxation, and calming narration.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi everyone, this is Jessica, and welcome to Unwind, a podcast where we come home to ourselves so we can explore relaxation and ask the question: what do we find when we unwind? Thank you all for being here. It's uh early in the Unwind adventure, but I'm really, really grateful for everyone who's already given feedback, reviews, ratings on the apps. I need those to help like drive the show in the cyber jungle. Thank you for well, just for being here, listening, unwinding with me, spreading the word. I really appreciate it. So tonight I'm reading Summer by Edith Wharton. And I'm reading Edith Warden's Summer tonight for a few reasons. First, I've heard from a lot of you over the years that you really like hearing the literature episodes. So I'm very happy to deliver. I like them too. Second, this novel, Summer, written by Wharton in 1917, really stands out among her books. Whereas she generally keeps the conversations witty, barbed, and gossipy in the salons of New York City where she herself grew up. Summer takes place in a tiny fictional New England town resembling some of the little hamlets in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts. Now, this is an area that I lived in for a while in my twenties, so it has a special place in my heart. And Edith Wharton loved it too. In fact, she designed an enormous home for herself there, named The Mount. More on that in a bit. Well, the summer, where Wharton gets the opportunity to describe the fertile, beautiful, central details of summer in New England. It's very much an outdoor book. So I was in the same area right in the middle of summer, imagining it all through Wharton's eyes. It was amazing. And I shared a lot about it, the whole road trip, in fact, over at Patreon.com and on Instagram. Very exciting. Two middle-aged ladies, two cats, one electric car. I smell the movie. So tonight we are going to North Dormer, Massachusetts, where we pick up in the middle of the book, and Charity is out on a date with an attractive young architect named Lucius Harney. Now, we will begin with hypnosis, some very, very deep unwinding. And then just let Wharton's beautiful writing take you deeper and deeper. Bringing your awareness to the wave of your breath is a profound and sort of trippy thing. By just hanging out on that wave, whether it's big or small, deep or shallow, you're beginning to tune in with other waves and rhythms inside of you. Connecting with yourself on all sorts of levels. And by tuning into that wave of the breath, you are aligning with other natural waves outside of you. Rhythms and waves in nature. As I invite you now to bring your awareness to your eyes, just allow your eyelids to become soft. Let them rest. And as your eyelids are resting, all the muscles around your eyes are softening and relaxing. And as your eyes are relaxing, your eyelids are feeling very heavy. So heavy they cannot open. Now, of course, logic will tell you that you can open your eyes. And you can. But as you imagine that your eyelids are so heavy they will not open, and you allow imagination to take over. Playing this little pretend game. By lifting your eyebrow, twitching them while your eyes remain closed. Good. As you are riding the wave of your imagination. And it's taking you deeper and deeper and deeper.

unknown 7:20

Good.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

And now as we continue with the imagination, I'd like you to imagine that inside your skull, where your brain is, is a ball of yarn. And one end of that ball of yarn is coming out a little hole in your forehead. And now you imagine that you are pulling gently on the ball of yarn. And as you're pulling on the yarn, it's unwinding and unwinding. Oh, it feels good to let it unwind. How the ball of yarn is becoming smaller and smaller. And now it's unwinding completely. And you see that other end of the ball of yarn coming out that hole.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

And now your mind feels clear. Open. Peaceful.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

And now allow that lovely sense of peace. A lovely wave of peace to move down over your shoulder. Oh, moving all the way down over your arms. Now that lovely, heavy feeling of peace is like a weighted blanket. All the way down your arms, arms feeling so comfortably heavy. As your hands relax, the rest of your body is letting go as you unwind and unwind and unwind.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

Good.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

As you bring your awareness now to any sounds you may be hearing in your environment, life is still happening around us. From this moment on, any sound that you hear will take you deeper and deeper. As you allow that sound to simply pass through you.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

And you decide to let it take you deeper.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Good. Now imagine that wave of peace moving inside of you. As you realize you can bring peace inside your own being. Just by imagining it. As you imagine that wave of peace gently washing over your heart. And your heart is feeling soothed, softened. And any tension or anxiety that's been held in your heart has dissolved. As you imagine the wave of peace moving down even deeper now into your lower torso, deep into your belly. Lovely soft wave relaxing the muscles of your abdomen. As your lower back lets go, as your buttocks relax, your pelvis is feeling very, very heavy, heavy on the bed.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

As you go deeper and deeper, the sound of my voice is taking you deeper and deeper.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

And that wave of peace is moving down your legs now, rolling down like a weighted blanket, softening, soothing, and releasing your legs as the piece moves all the way down into your feet and your toes, and with every word I say, you are taking yourself deeper and even deeper. Charity and Harney had secured a boat, and getting away from the wharves and the refreshment booths, they drifted idly along, hugging the shadow of the shore. Where the sun struck the water, its shafts flamed back blindingly at the heat-veiled sky, and the least shade was black by contrast. The lake was so smooth that the reflection of the trees on its edge seemed enameled on a solid surface. But gradually, as the sun declined, the water grew transparent. And Charity, leaning over, plunged her fascinated gaze into depths so clear that she saw the inverted treetops interwoven with the green growth of the bottom. They rounded a point at the farther end of the lake, and entering an inlet, pushed their bow against a protruding tree trunk. A green veil of willows overhung them. Beyond the trees, wheat fields sparkled in the sun, and all along the horizon the clear hills throbbed with light. Charity leaned back in the stern, and Harney unshipped the oars and lay in the bottom of the boat without speaking. Ever since their meeting at the Creston Pool, he had been subject to these brooding silences, which were as different as possible from the pauses when they ceased to speak because words were needless. At such times his face wore the expression she had seen on it when she had looked in at him from the darkness, and again there came over her a sense of the mysterious distance between them. But usually his fits of abstraction were followed by bursts of gaiety that chased away the shadow before it chilled her. She was still thinking about the $10 he had handed to the driver of the runabout. It had given them 20 minutes of pleasure, and it seemed unimaginable that anyone should be able to buy amusement at that rate. With ten dollars, he might have bought her an engagement ring. She knew that Mrs. Tom Fry's, which came from Springfield and had a diamond in it, had cost only $8.75. But she did not know why the thought had occurred to her. Harney would never buy her an engagement ring. They were friends and comrades, but no more. He had been perfectly fair to her. He had never said a word to mislead her. She wondered what the girl was like whose hand was waiting for his ring. Boats were beginning to thicken on the lake, and the clang of incessantly arriving trolleys announced the return of the crowds from the ball field. The shadows lengthened across the pearl gray water, and two white clouds near the sun were turning golden. On the opposite shore, men were hammering hastily at a wooden scaffolding in a field. Charity asked what it was for. Why, the fireworks. I suppose they'll be a big show. Harney looked at her and a smile crept into his moody eyes. Have you never seen any good fireworks? Miss Hatchard always sends up lovely rockets on the fourth, she answered doubtfully. Oh. His contempt was unbounded. I mean a big performance like this. Illuminated boats and all the rest? She flushed at the picture. Do they send them up from the lake, too? Rather, didn't you notice that big raft we passed? It's wonderful to see the rockets completing their orbits down under one's feet. She said nothing, and he put the oars into the Rollox. If we stay, we better go and pick up something to eat. But how can we get back afterwards? She ventured. Feeling would break her heart if she missed it. He consulted a timetable, found a ten o'clock train, and reassured her. Twilight fell, and lights began to show along the shore. The trolleys roaring out from Nettleton became great luminous serpents coiling in and out among the trees. The wooden eating houses at the lake's edge danced with lanterns, and the dusk echoed with laughter and shouts, and the clumsy splashing of oars. Harney and Charity had found a table in the corner of a balcony built over the lake, and were patiently awaiting an unattainable chowder. Close under them, the water lapped the piles, agitated by the evolutions of a little white steamboat trellised with colored globes, which was to run passengers up and down the lake. It was already black with them as it sheared off on its first trip. Suddenly, Charity heard a woman's laugh behind her. The sound was familiar, and she turned to look. A band of showily dressed girls and dapper young men wearing badges of secret societies, with new straw hats tilted far back on their square clipped hair, had invaded the balcony and were loudly clamoring for a table. The girl in the lead was the one who had laughed. She wore a large hat with a long white feather, and from under its brim her painted eyes looked at Charity with amused recognition. Say, if this ain't like old home week, she remarked to the girl at her elbow, and giggles and glances passed between them. Charity knew at once that the girl with the white feather was Julia Hawes. She had lost her freshness, and the paint under her eyes made her face seem thinner, but her lips had the same lovely curve and the same cold, mocking smile, as if there was some secret absurdity in the person she was looking at, and she had instantly detected it. Charity flushed to the forehead and looked away. She felt herself humiliated by Julia's sneer and vexed that the mockery of such a creature should affect her. She trembled lest Harney should notice that the noisy troupe had recognized her. But they found no table free and passed on tumultuously. Presently, there was a soft rush through the air, and a shower of silver fell from the blue evening sky. In another direction, pale Roman candles shot up singly through the trees, and a fire-haired rocket swept the horizon like a portent. Between these intermittent flashes, the velvet curtains of the darkness were descending, and in the intervals of eclipse, the voices of the crowd seemed to sink to smothered murmurs. Charity and Harney, dispossessed by newcomers, were at length obliged to give up their table and struggle through the throng about the boat landings. For a while there seemed no escape from the tide of late arrivals. But finally, Harney secured the last two places on the stand from which the more privileged were to see the fireworks. The seats were at the end of a row, one above the other. Charity had taken off her hat to have an uninterrupted view. And whenever she leaned back to follow the curve of some disheveled rocket, she could feel Harney's knees against her head. After a while, the scattered fireworks ceased. A longer interval of darkness followed, and then the whole night broke into a flower. From every point of the horizon, gold and silver arches sprang up and crossed each other. Sky orchards broke into blossom, shed their flaming petals, and hung their branches with golden fruit. And all the while the air was filled with a soft, supernatural hum, as though great birds were building their nests in those invisible treetops. Now and then there came a lull, and a wave of moonlight swept the lake. In a flash it revealed hundreds of boats, steel dark against lustrous ripples. Then it withdrew as if with a furling of vast, translucent wings. Charity's heart throbbed with the light. It was as if all the latent beauty of things had been unveiled to her. She could not imagine that the world held anything more wonderful. But near her, she heard someone say, You wait till you see the set piece. And instantly her hopes took a fresh flight. At last, just as it was beginning to seem as though the whole arc of the sky were one great lid pressed against her dazzled eyeballs, and striking out of them continuous jets of jeweled light, the velvet darkness settled down again. And a murmur of expectation ran through the crowd. Now, now, the same voice said excitedly. And Charity, grasping the hat on her knee, crushed it tight in the effort to restrain her rapture. For a moment the night seemed to grow more impenetrably black. Then a great picture stood out against it like a constellation. It was surmounted by a golden scroll bearing the inscription, Washington crossing the Delaware. And across a flood of motionless golden ripples, the national hero passed, erect, solemn, and gigantic, standing with folded arms in the stern of a slowly moving golden boat. A long oh burst from the spectators. The stand creaked and shook with her blissful trepidations. Oh, Charity gasped. She had forgotten where she was, had at last forgotten even Harney's nearness. She seemed to have been caught up into the stars. The picture vanished, and darkness came down. In the obscurity, she felt her head clasped by two hands. Her face was drawn backward, and Harney's lips were pressed on hers. With sudden vehemence, he wound his arms about her, holding her head against his breast while she gave him back his kisses. An unknown Harney had revealed himself. A Harney who dominated her, and yet over whom she felt herself possessed of a new mysterious power. But the crowd was beginning to move, and he had to release her. Come, he said in a confused voice. He scrambled over to the side of the stand and holding up his arm, caught her as she sprang to the ground. He passed his arm about her waist, steadying her against the descending rush of people, and she clung to him, speechless, exultant, as if all the crowding and confusion about them were a mere vain stirring of the air. Come, he repeated. We must try to make the trolley. He drew her along, and she followed, still in her dream. They walked as if they were one, so isolated in ecstasy, that the people jostling them on every side seemed impalpable. But when they reached the terminus, the illuminated trolley was already clanging on its way, its platforms black with passengers. The cars waiting behind it were as thickly packed, and the throng about the terminus was so dense that it seemed hopeless to struggle for a place. Last trip up the lake! A megaphone bellowed from the wharf, and the lights of a little steamboat came dancing out of the darkness. No use waiting here. Shall we run up the lake? Arnie suggested. They pushed their way back to the edge of the water just as the gang plank lowered from the white side of the boat. The electric light at the end of the wharf flashed full on the descending passengers. And among them, Charity caught the sight of Julia Hawes, her white feather askew, and the face under it flushed with coarse laughter. As she stepped from the gangplank, she stopped short, her dark ringed eyes darting malice. Hello, charity royal, she called out, and then looking back over her shoulder. Didn't I tell you it was a family party? Here's grandpa's little daughter come to take him home. A snigger ran through the group. And then, towering over them and steadying himself by the handrail in a desperate effort at erectness, Mr. Royal stepped stiffly ashore. Like the young men of the party, he wore a secret society emblem in the buttonhole of his black frock coat. His head was covered by a new Panama hat, and his narrow black tie, half undone, dangled down on his rumpled shirt front. His face, a livid brown with red blotches of anger and lips sunken in like an old man's, was a lamentable ruin in the searching glare. He was just behind Julia Hawes and had one hand on her arm. But as he left the gangplank, he freed himself and moved a step or two away from his companions. He had seen Charity at once, and his glance passed slowly from her to Harney, whose arm was still about her. He stood staring at them and trying to master the senile quiver of his lips. Then he drew himself up with the tremulous majesty of drunkenness and stretched out his arm. You whore. You damp bare-headed whore, you. He enunciated slowly. There was a scream of tipsy laughter from the party, and Charity involuntarily put her hands to her head. She remembered that her hat had fallen from her lap when she jumped up to leave the stand, and suddenly she had a vision of herself, hatless, disheveled, with a man's arm about her, confronting that drunken crew headed by her guardian's pitiable figure. The picture filled her with shame. She had known since childhood about Mr. Royal's habits, had seen them, as she went up to bed, sitting morosely in his office, a bottle at his elbow, or coming home heavy and quarrelsome from his business expeditions to Hepburn or Springfield. But the idea of his associating himself publicly with a band of disreputable girls and barroom loafers was new and dreadful to her. She said in a gasp of misery, and releasing herself from Harney's arm, she went straight up to Mr. Royal. You come home with me. You come right home with me, she said in a low, stern voice, as if she had not heard his apostrophe. And one of the girls called out, say, how many fellers does she want? There was another laugh, followed by a pause of curiosity, during which Mr. Royal continued to glare at charity. At length his twitching lips parted. I said, you damn whore, he repeated with precision, steadying himself on Julia's shoulder. Laughs and jeers were beginning to spring up from the circle of people beyond their group. And a voice called out from the gangway, now then step lively there, all aboard. The pressure of approaching and departing passengers forced the actors and the rapid scene apart and pushed them back into the throng. Charity found herself clinging to Harney's arm and sobbing desperately. Mr. Royal had disappeared, and in the distance she heard the receding sound of Julia's laugh. The boat, laden to the taffrail, was puffing away on her last trip. Charity was growing faint and tired, for she had eaten nothing since morning and was not used to walking so far. Her head felt light, and she sat down for a moment by the roadside. As she sat there, she heard the click of a bicycle bell and started up to plunge back into the forest. But before she could move, the bicycle had swept around the curve of the road, and Harney, jumping off, was approaching her with outstretched arms. Charity, what on earth are you doing here? She stared as if he were a vision, so startled by the unexpectedness of his being there that no words came to her. Where were you going? Had you forgotten that I was coming? He continued, trying to draw her to him. But she shrank from his embrace. I was going away. I don't want to see you. I want you to leave me alone, she broke out wildly. He looked at her and his face grew grave, as though the shadow of a premonition brushed it. Going away from me, Charity? From everybody. I want you to leave me alone. He stood, glancing doubtfully up and down the lonely forest road that stretched away into sun-flecked distances. Where were you going? Home. Home? This way? She threw her head back defiantly. To my home, up yonder, up to the mountain. As she spoke, she became aware of a change in his face. He was no longer listening to her. He was only looking at her. With the passionate, absorbed expression she had seen in his eyes after they had kissed on the stand at Nettleton. He was the new Harney again. The Harney abruptly revealed in that embrace, who seemed so penetrated with the joy of her presence that he was utterly careless of what she was thinking or feeling. He caught her hands with a laugh. How do you suppose I found you? He said gaily. He drew out a little packet of his letters and flourished them before her bewildered eyes. You drop them, you imprudent young person. Drop them in the middle of the road, not far from here. And the young man who's running the gospel tent picked them up just as I was riding by. He drew back, holding her at arm's length and scrutinizing her troubled face with the minute searching gaze of his short-sighted eyes. Did you really think you could run away from me? You see you weren't meant to, he said. And before she could answer, he had kissed her again, not vehemently, but tenderly, almost fraternally, as if he had guessed her confused pain and wanted her to know he understood it. He wound his fingers through hers. Come, let's walk a little. I want to talk to you. There's so much to say. He spoke with a boy's gaiety, carelessly and confidently, as if nothing had happened that could shame or embarrass them. And for a moment, in the sudden relief of her release from lonely pain, she felt herself yielding to his mood. But he had turned and was drawing her back along the road by which she had come. She stiffened herself and stopped short. I won't go back, she said. They looked at each other a moment in silence. Then he answered gently. Very well. Let's go the other way then. She remained motionless, gazing silently at the ground. And he went on. Isn't there a house up here somewhere? A little abandoned house. You meant to show me someday? Still she made no answer. And he continued in the same tone of tender reassurance. Let's go there now and sit down and talk quietly. He took one of the hands that hung by her side and pressed his lips to the palm. Do you suppose I'm gonna let you send me away? Do you suppose I don't understand? The little old house, its wooden walls unbleached to ghostly gray, stood in an orchard above the road. The garden palings had fallen, but the broken gate dangled between its posts, and the path to the house was marked by rose bushes run wild and hanging their small pale blossoms above the crowding grasses. Slender pilasters and an intricate fan light framed the opening where the door had hung, and the door itself lay rotting in the grass with an old apple tree fallen across it. Inside also, wind and weather had blanched everything to the same one silvery tint. The house was as dry and pure as the interior of a long empty shell. But it must have been exceptionally well built, for the little rooms have kept something of their human aspect. The wooden mantles with their neat classic ornaments were in place, and the corners of one ceiling retained a light film of plaster tracery. Harney had found an old bench at the back door and dragged it into the house. Charity sat on it, leaning her head against the wall in a state of drowsy lassitude. He had guessed that she was hungry and thirsty, and brought her some tablets of chocolate from his bicycle bag, and filled his drinking cup from a spring in the orchard. And now he sat at her feet, smoking a cigarette and looking up at her without speaking outside, the afternoon shadows were lengthening across the grass.