North and South, Part II

The second part of the famous novel by the classic English author is now completely immersed in the stuffy atmosphere of industrial Milton, and the memory of sunny Helstone somewhere in the South only flashes through the thoughts of the relocated Hale family. After dinner at the Thorntons', Margaret is even more torn about her relationship with Mr Thornton than before. On the one hand, she admires him to a certain extent; on the other, she is repulsed by his harshness, which borders on ruthlessness. As she tells her father in a beautiful metaphor, it's like eating an olive for the first time: “Let me make a face over it first, and then I’ll swallow it.” Meanwhile, the infatuated mill owner manages to break his mother's resistance, but his fall is all the worse when he hears from his beloved's lips that he will never be her husband… The dying Mrs Hale persuades Margaret to write to her brother, Frederick, who is forbidden from returning to England because of a naval mutiny he once led. Fred finds his mother still alive – but only briefly. He and his father are completely broken by her passing, and Margaret (along with Mrs Dixon) must be the one to give them strength. Moreover, Frederick must leave as soon as possible, because – figuratively speaking – a noose is hanging over his head. Thus, Margaret's rejected suitor, Henry Lennox, also indirectly enters the scene, as he is to help prove Frederick's innocence. But the Hales are not the only ones who know that the escaped criminal, which Frederick de facto is, has returned to England, and that a handsome reward is offered for his capture… His dramatic departure from Milton, after which a certain unworthy man dies, further darkens the already grey sky over poor Margaret, who must lie to save her brother. And when she learns that Mr Thornton is also privy to the whole affair, she falls into despair… The novel North and South, which has been published countless times all over the world (and also adapted twice by the BBC), is being published in Czech for the very first time, in a translation by Jana Srbová. Richard Armitage, who played John Thornton in the series “North and South” (BBC 2004), very aptly said that Elizabeth Gaskell – unlike other Victorian female authors – can delve not only into the female soul but also into the male one.