Beth’s remorse over George’s death

Beth’s remorse over George’s death is rooted in a painful double conviction: she could not persuade him to go on, and she helped him die in the way he wanted. Her account does not resolve that contradiction. Instead, it makes her grief a struggle between loyalty to George and the sense that what she did was wrong.

The decision and the meadow

Beth says she could not give George the courage to continue. She then helped him carry out his wish, believing that otherwise he would not be buried. The account presents this as a choice made under pressure, not as a decision Beth can later regard as uncomplicated: care for George and the practical fear of what would happen to his body are bound together in the same admission.

George had told Beth that he was afraid and could not go through with it, though he still wanted, in some way, to die. He refused her wish to go with him and said he would have it over with in an hour, in the meadow. Beth went there in pouring rain, but George was already dead when she arrived. Her recollection of the missed chance to accompany him sharpens her remorse: she had wanted to be beside him, but could not be there at the end.

Guilt and grief

Beth’s explanation turns on an anguished test of her own loyalty. She recalls thinking that if she could not do this for George, she did not know what anything was worth. That reasoning explains her action without freeing her from its consequences. Her devotion to him and her participation in his death remain inseparable in her memory.

As she tells the story, Beth trembles so much that she can no longer follow the lines on the cloth. Her hands clasp and stroke one another, seeking comfort; the visible strain makes the confession more than a recollection delivered at a distance. She briefly smiles through tears, but the smile fades. She calls the experience hell and says that the days afterward felt wrong and sinful, while leaving her thought unfinished in an unresolved qualification.

Telling and its unresolved aftermath

The scene does not present Beth’s account as a confession that brings relief or a settled judgment. Her words preserve the conflict between believing that she acted for George and feeling that the act was a sin. When a hoarse voice from the front row asks why, Beth looks up for the first time since she began speaking. The question interrupts her halting account, but the passage ends before she answers; her remorse remains exposed and unresolved.