I‘ve just finished reading Thomas Hardy‘s „The Woodlanders“ and there is a wonderful breathing scene in it which I‘d like to share with you.
Fearing the ruin of her reputation, due to an affair with the married Dr Fitzpiers, Mrs Charmond, former stage actress, turned widowed heiress, approaches Mrs Fitzpiers in the Hintock woods. Her intention is to convince the kindhearted Mrs Fitzpiers that the affair with her husband was only a flirtatious fling which she would put a stop to at once. Grace Fitzpiers, at first being indignant, hearing Mrs Charmond speak, realises that the lady is deeply in love with her husband. Knowing her own husband all too well, Grace‘s indignation turns to pity.
She expresses her estimation of the situation which Mrs Charmond, now the indignant one, denies with further lies. Grace, realising that the affair will probably continue and Mrs Charmond, realising that she has been caught, part ways in agitation. They both head off into the woods, their thoughts and hearts still racing from the encounter. Unaware of the encroaching darkness, Grace loses her way. After a couple of hours walking in the dark woods, she hears someone in the distance approaching and cries out to make herself known. The cry is returned and the two people in the dark run towards each other, almost falling into each others arms. The other person is Mrs Charmond. The two women are too weary and cold to resume their argument. It begins to rain and they are forced to find some shelter and keep each other warm. What ensues is something akin to a lover‘s scene except that Mrs Charmond confesses all….
„They found a clump of bushy hollies which afforded a shelter from the wind, and sat down under it, some tufts of dead fern, crisp and dry, that remained from the previous season forming a sort of nest for them. But it was cold, nevertheless, on this March night, particularly for Grace, who with the sanguine prematureness of youth in matters of dress, had considered it spring-time, and hence was not so warmly clad as Mrs. Charmond, who still wore her winter fur. But after sitting a while the latter lady shivered no less than Grace as the warmth imparted by her hasty walking began to go off, and they felt the cold air drawing through the holly leaves which scratched their backs and shoulders. Moreover, they could hear some drops of rain falling on the trees, though none reached the nook in which they had ensconced themselves.
“If we were to cling close together,” said Mrs. Charmond, “we should keep each other warm. But,” she added, in an uneven voice, “I suppose you won’t come near me for the world!”
“Why not?”
“Because–well, you know.”
“Yes. I will–I don’t hate you at all.”
They consequently crept up to one another, and being in the dark, lonely and weary, did what neither had dreamed of doing beforehand, clasped each other closely, Mrs. Charmond’s furs consoling Grace’s cold face, and each one’s body as she breathed alternately heaving against that of her companion.
When a few minutes had been spent thus, Mrs. Charmond said, “I am so wretched!” in a heavy, emotional whisper.
“You are frightened,” said Grace, kindly. “But there is nothing to fear; I know these woods well.”
“I am not at all frightened at the wood, but I am at other things.”
Mrs. Charmond embraced Grace more and more tightly, and the younger woman could feel her neighbour’s breathings grow deeper and more spasmodic, as though uncontrollable feelings were germinating.
“After I had left you,” she went on, “I regretted something I had said. I have to make a confession–I must make it!” she whispered, brokenly, the instinct to indulge in warmth of sentiment which had led this woman of passions to respond to Fitzpiers in the first place leading her now to find luxurious comfort in opening her heart to his wife. “I said to you I could give him up without pain or deprivation–that he had only been my pastime. That was untrue–it was said to deceive you. I could not do it without much pain; and, what is more dreadful, I cannot give him up–even if I would–of myself alone.”
“Why? Because you love him, you mean.”
Felice Charmond denoted assent by a movement….”
Source: The Woodlanders, Thomas Hards, Penguin Classics