The Return of the Soldier

„The ​woman has gathered the soul of the man into her soul and is keeping it warm in love and peace so that his body can rest quiet for a little time. That is a great thing for a woman to do.” When the soilder returns from the front, he returns to three women who love him. His wife, Kitty, with her cold, moonlight beauty, and his devoted cousin Jenny wait in their exquisite home on the crest of the Harrow-weald. Margaret Allington, his first and long-forgotten love, is nearby in the dreary suburb of Wealdstone. But the soldier is shellshocked and can only remember the Margaret he loved fifteen years before, when he was a young man and she an inn-keeper's daughter on the magical Monkey Island. His cousin he remembers only as a childhood playmate, and his wife he remembers not at all. The three women have a choice – to leave him where he wishes to be, or to „cure” him. It is Margaret whose beauty of soul reveals a love so great that she can make the final sacrifice… This is Rebecca West's first published work of fiction, a woman's war novel in which she powerfully explores a recurring theme in all her work – the nurturing and life-sustaining force of woman in a world governed by the destructive and deathly powers of man.

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