The French Lieutenant’s Woman: Chapter 60 Summary & Analysis

It’s a beautiful day at the end of May when Charles arrives in Chelsea. Montague had received a name and address in the mail, and Charles told him not to give Sarah any reason to flee. A clerk investigated and found that the woman living there looked like Sarah and went by Mrs. Roughwood, a name similar enough to Woodruff that it had to be her. She was clearly only pretending to be married. Montague suspected that she had sent the address herself, but Charles didn’t think so. He suspects that Sarah must be a governess at the fine house where she lives. He doesn’t realize that Montague is withholding something. Charles couldn’t figure out how he felt, but he knew he must speak to her, though Montague warned him to be careful.

Charles approaches Sarah’s house. He doesn’t know much about this area. The Thames is disgusting and smelly, so it’s not so wonderful to live right next to it, but Charles can tell that the houses are good. He feels embarrassed that he’s essentially about to call on a servant, but he goes up the path to the house and knocks. Eventually a maid opens the door and he asks for Mrs. Roughwood. The maid isn’t wearing the usual cap of her kind, and she doesn’t address him as “sir.” He realizes she’s not a maid after all. He gives him her card. A man appears at the end of the hall, and the girl tells him why Charles is there. The man seems slightly haughty, but he tells her to take Charles up to Sarah.

Charles follows the girl up the stairs, noting the walls crowded with painting of a modern style, many signed with the name of an artist who had caused an uproar about twenty years before. Charles assumes the man he saw must collect art. He asks whether Mrs. Roughwood is working as a governess there, and the girl, amused, says she is not. She goes into a room. Charles sees two men standing in front of a painting on an easel. One of them glances at him, and Charles is stunned to find that he recognizes him from a lecture he once gave. He forms hypotheses about who lives here and realizes that he’s been wrong to assume that fallen women can only descend further.

Sarah appears at the door. Her clothing makes her seem like a stranger; she’s dressed like a New Woman, wearing a blue skirt, a belt, and a striped blouse. Her hair is tied with a bright ribbon. Charles thinks she looks younger than before, and he feels like he’s back in America, because many women there dress in this sensible way that hints of freedom. Charles liked it there, but now he flushes, suspecting much. However, he’s relieved to find that she still has the air of defiance that attracted him to her.

Eventually, Sarah asks how Charles found her, and he realizes that she didn’t send the address, and she’s not grateful to see him. He says someone told his lawyer where she was, and he reveals that he never married Ernestina. She clearly didn’t know. He says he’s searched for her everywhere. She says she has had good fortune and confirms who the man Charles saw is. Charles asks who owns the house. He’s heard gossip about the man he saw downstairs. Sarah leads him upstairs, into a studio filled with unfinished canvases and painting supplies. Sarah says she’s the artist’s assistant, and sometimes his model. Charles sees a sketch of a partly nude woman and wonders if it’s her.

Charles learns that Sarah has lived here for a year. He wants to ask what her arrangement is. He watches her and hears sounds from below. They are divided. He’s come to save her, but she’s showing no despair from which to do so. He asks whether the artist knows Sarah isn’t married, and she says she pretends to be a widow. Charles asks about the artist’s wife, and she says the woman died. The artist’s brother and another man also live there, but Charles knows this other man is a poet whom respectable people disapprove of for the sexual nature of his writing. And Charles has heard that the artist takes opium. He imagines them all having an orgy, but Sarah’s attitude makes this seem unlikely. Part of Charles tries to stop being so suspicious.

Charles explains what has happened to him since he last saw Sarah, but she only stares out the window. Finally she says she’s so moved that she doesn’t know what to say. However, she still shows no gratitude. Charles points out that she said she loved him. She acknowledges this, but she never thought she’d see him again, and she doesn’t let herself regret what she thought could never happen. Finally she insists that she’s not the artist’s mistress. Charles doesn’t understand why she seems so embarrassed to see him, but she must have more interesting friends now. He realizes he has become the one who hates people now.

Sarah says that she wanted to do what was best after deceiving and hurting Charles. She didn’t realize until their meeting in Exeter that she had been mad the whole time he knew her. She has learned that artists must judge their work harshly, and she’s glad she destroyed their relationship. She thinks that her impurity ruined Charles’s purity. Charles realizes that his formality has always grated against her directness. He thinks he’s been the artificial one, while she’s been straightforward. He asks whether they can take up the pure part of their relationship again, but she says they can’t. He says her words are insufficient when he’s traveled four thousand miles to find her.

Sarah denies she’s saying that she never loved Charles, but he insists that she’s saying she never saw him as anything more than something to use and she doesn’t care what he’s gone through. He touches her shoulder, but she stiffens. He takes this to mean she loves someone else, and she confirms this. Charles is angry and moves to leave, but Sarah insists that the person isn’t whom he thinks, and he stops. She says an artist wants to marry her, but she won’t do it. If she had to choose between them, she’d choose Charles, but she doesn’t want to marry at all. She’s discovered that she likes being alone and wants to be free to be herself. Furthermore, she’s happy here, with this work, among these people. She feels like she belongs, and she can’t turn her back on this good fortune.

Some part of Charles admires Sarah for this speech. He can tell that her time in London has anchored her more securely to the philosophy that she’s always had. He insists that he can’t let her work get in the way of a woman’s purpose in the world. He doesn’t want to change her, but only to make her happier. She says she isn’t meant to be understood, even by herself, and she can only be happy as long as she doesn’t understand. Charles finds this ridiculous, but Sarah says she’s refusing him because he can’t understand that this state is not ridiculous to her. Charles says she can be as mysterious as she wants, but she says his love interferes with everything.

Charles decides to be more sentimental, so he asks whether Sarah has thought about him. She says she did at first, and she did when she saw his notices in the newspaper and had to hide from him. She found out that he hadn’t married Ernestina. She seems rather smug at keeping this information from him. Charles is frightened by her indifference, and perhaps begins to understand her mystery. A change in sexual relations has begun, and he’s only a pawn in a battle over territory. Sarah doesn’t hate men, but she acts as she does to achieve some larger purpose. Charles sees that she’s not as happy as she says, but she doesn’t want him to know that she still suffers.

Charles remarks that Sarah has enjoyed ruining his life. He accuses her of sending her address to his lawyer just to torture him one last time before turning to a new victim. She calmly denies this, but he insists it’s true and that she’ll one day be punished. Charles is despairing, but Sarah is outraged. He turns to leave and she runs after him, so he stops. She blocks the door, saying she can’t let him believe what he’s said. She wants him to see a woman in this house who understands her better than anyone and will explain much. Charles manages to control his anger and refuses to see the woman. They engage in a battle of wills, and Sarah seems curious to see what Charles will do. He knows he still loves her.

Finally Charles asks what he’s supposed to understand from Sarah’s request, and she says someone less honorable would already have guessed. He wonders if there’s a faint smile in her eyes. She moves to a bellpull. He wonders at what she’s said about a woman who understands her, at her hatred of men, but he can’t admit what he’s thinking. Sarah rings the bell and asks him to respect the woman given her age, then leaves. Charles realizes he’s about to meet the artist’s sister, Christina Rossetti. He’s always found her poetry confused and mystical. He opens the door and sees Sarah enter another room as someone comes up the stairs.

Charles returns to the studio. He now understands that Christina Rossetti has formed Sarah’s way of looking at the world. He wishes he hadn’t come to find her, but since he’s here, he won’t let Rossetti triumph. He hears a sound and turns to find the girl from before carrying a small child. He assumes she was on her way to the nursery. Charles tells her a lady is coming to speak to him. The girl sets the child down on a carpet and gives her a doll. Then she moves to leave. Charles asks whether the lady is coming, and the girl says she’s already there.

Charles stares at the little girl. She tries to give him her doll, and he kneels and helps her stand, examining her face. She seems unhappy with him, so he takes out his watch to cheer her up. He carries her to a chair and she sits on his knees. Watching her, he begins to think again about his conversation with Sarah. He hears the door open and someone put a hand on the back of his chair. In another house, someone starts to play the piano, and only that sound indicates the passage of time; in every other sense, history has halted. When the girl gets bored, Sarah picks her up. Charles rises and sees that she’s smiling, taunting him. She picks up the doll and stares at Charles’s feet.

Charles asks the girl’s name, and Sarah says it’s Lalage. She explains that Mr. Rossetti saw her in the street and asked to draw her, all before Lalage was born. He’s her godfather. She knows it’s a strange name. Charles can’t believe she’s asking his opinion on this matter, but he says the name is Greek. He feels like he’ll never forgive Sarah. She asks whether he doesn’t like the name, but he says he does. Charles stares at Sarah and Lalage as though they’re the embodiment of some escaped danger. Finally he asks Sarah why she didn’t tell him about Lalage, and she says things had to be this way. He understands that their fate depended on God forgiving their sins. He asks about their earlier confrontation, and Sarah says it had to happen.

Finally Sarah looks at Charles, and she’s crying. Her look is naked, the kind of look that changes lives and shows that love holds everything together. Charles asks whether he’ll ever understand her. She shakes her head, and he kisses her hair. The piano music stops. Lalage bangs her doll on Charles’s cheek.